


HOMEPOKE

by chocolatemilk2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Crossover, Multi, Pokemon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolatemilk2/pseuds/chocolatemilk2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His name is JOHN EGBERT, and today is his THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY. This is kind of a big deal, and is considered akin to a 21st in his society because it marks the day one can become a POKEMON TRAINER. (Or just keep attending school like a good kid, but who wants to do that?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	HOMEPOKE

**Author's Note:**

> this turned out to be more of a homestuck fic that happened to be set in pokemon verse than an actual definitive crossover eep

His name is JOHN EGBERT, and today is his THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY. This is kind of a big deal, and is considered akin to a 21st in his society because it marks the day one can become a POKEMON TRAINER. (Or just keep attending school like a good kid, but who wants to do that?)

It’s 6am. Bleh! John promptly rolls over the covers and goes back to sleep, in call back to his hero Nicholas Cage-Ketchum. There are posters of Cage and his team plastered all over John’s room. Nic Cage-Ketchum is THE LEGEND, the man, and all other masculine accolades, and proved that if you are a true hero, sleeping in a bit late is totally something you can get away with.

But, disagreeably, life has other plans for unconscious John in form of pastry to face. John’s half-fuzzy dream of birthday pancake breakfast snaps to realized sweet confectionary nightmare. Baking powder chokes and for a moment John is entirely overwhelmed by frosting and chocolate filling. He can’t see for the Betty Crocker packet mix monstrosity burning his eyes and struggles with his unreasonably tight tucked in bedsheet to sit up and prize the cake away. “Mmmf,” John groans, which he hopes yet doubts is Latin for ‘HELP’.

Damn unyielding bedsheets. John desperately plunges his hand into the creamy, sponge insides and prises a tunnel to his mouth. Air!

John takes the time to unclog his nasal passages (a brilliant start to the day, by anyone’s standards) and spit out all the excess cake. It’s pretty disgusting, also not very heroic at all. Lucky all that nervous thrashing has loosened his bed sheets so he can get out of bed. Dad must’ve gone overboard with the tucking in last night, and rammed some deadbolts in there. He can be so embarrassing sometimes.

“No more cakes,” John swears to himself, as he leaves the pile to approach his disguise box. “Not even pancakes. Nuh-uh.”

John casts an eye back to the sugary mess which is slowly attracting ants but he refuses to clean up on his birthday. C’mon, cut him some slack. John captchalogues it, which he maintains is just as good.

This seems like a perfect time to contact his best friend, Dave. Uh oh. It looks like Dave already had that idea several hours ago.

TG: yo egberk  
TG: you there  
TG: cmon berty beetle its only 6am  
TG: not like it’s a hellish time for any sane teenager to be awake or anything  
TG: thats crazy talk  
TG: the spearows farts are nigh uncontained right now  
TG: wake up  
TG: wake up wriggle into the sunlight like a good lady bug  
TG: rise and shine you have a massive oak tree to crawl up  
TG: figurative oak tree that is  
TG: unless you’re actually meeting the profess that is  
TG: is he still alive

John checks his Chumrolll. Looks like Dave’s still on (why is he up so early when it’s not his birthday, John wonders) but neither of John’s other friends are. The only one who is usually awake at this time is Jade, and it’s weird to find her not risen early.

GT: yes he is! i should be meeting him today in fact  
TG: he lives  
GT: yeah im pretty sure of it  
TG: i was talking about you birthday boy thought id lost you for a moment there  
TG: way to nonconform like a boss I thought youd be shootin out of that bed at 12:01 like it was Christmas  
GT: i would never dishonour the Cage like that!  
TG: whatever you say man its your funeral  
TG: or birthday same difference  
TG: did the package come yet  
GT: package?  
TG: nevermind  
GT: haha don’t tell me did you send me a dumb ironic flash grenade this year?  
TG: such faith  
TG: you’re like a true believer in the majestic dave strider  
TG: the first prophet of the dave worship  
TG: the rule of the irony cult fellowship who meet twice a month and on labour days  
TG: to mix review hella jeff handing out these awesome best of dave strider albums  
TG: heaven forbid the mighty dave lower himself to grace lame o john Egbert with a decent birthday present  
GT: thank you I guess. I hope its some running shoes I really need some of them  
TG: yeah right why don’t you go ask your mom  
GT: no why don’t you ask your mom  
TG: because I slept with your mom and we have a good going thing now  
GT: yeah right my mom is way too cool for you!  
TG: did you mistake who you were talking to or something  
TG: last I checked it was dave strider  
GT: what did your mom tell you that  
GT: never mind that was dumb  
GT: this is stupid neither of us have mom’s  
TG: you know who has a mom  
TG: your mom  
GT: yes she does dave. yes she does.  
TG: point taken  
TG: right no seriously you want to know why im out of bed  
GT: did you wake up by accident?  
TG: it wasn’t your birthday or anything dumb like that for sure  
TG: I was meant to get this package of the beta version of that game we ordered back in September or you did anyway  
TG: I didn’t really give a crap so I only remembered like three days ago that they were releasing the game testers patch today  
TG: I ordered red version instead it looks way cooler than your shitty flower bear dinosaur prototype  
GT: no way green version is the best! or is going to be  
GT: oh yeah i forgot that came out today  
GT: even though ive had this poster on my door for months i guess i got distracted by my upcoming birthday and trainerdom  
TG: speaking of which  
TG: shouldnt you be really busy right now  
TG: i mean its great chatting with you and all but  
GT: yeah  
GT: i just don’t want to go downstairs right now  
GT: because of my dad  
TG: fair enough  
TG: hey man sucks that you don’t have an awesome guardian like i do  
TG: my bro  
TG: its like my bro is in the top percentage of bros  
GT: okay? wow  
TG: the Fedex girl is totally here with my express delivery parcel  
TG: shit bros intercepting gotta go

turntechGodhead ceased pestering  ghostyTrickster.

John blinks and huffs so his cowlick flicks up, and stalks from a laptop to another part of the room. Dave didn’t even wish him a happy birthday yet. The only solution is to don a HILARIOUS DISGUISE. The disguise name John imagines, is capitalized for extra frankly hilarity much in the lieu of COLONEL SASSACRE’S.

HILARIOUS DISGUIUSE donned, John creeps to his doorway to nudge it open a fraction. Fuck! Dad is in the hallway. “JOooo0oohhhnn~” he sings, cream pie in one hand and shaving cream in the other.

John slams the door, undons his frankly uncomfortable duo moustache/party hat disguise, and contemplates the jump from the window. But if there’s anything he’s learned from NIC CAGE KETCHUM, it’s that one can get to the bottom of a whole pile of stuff, by putting a bunch of stuff below it. John swears Nic Cage taught him that.

John proceeds to throw his cake-soiled bedsheets, shitty disguise, disguise box, mattress and bedframe out the window. His bedframe lands on the pogo ride, which launches off its spring right into the air. There may sound a sickening crack. Wow, that bedframe was probably so expensive, dad’s going to kill him once the jokes are off. Luckily the jokes are never off.

Nevertheless, the splintered wood does make for a good shock absorber, and John drops right down the rubble pile and onto the yard. Freedom. Is. Epic. John takes the moment to savour the taste of sweet victory in the form of awesome friendship present in the mail.

Unfortunately, Jade’s promised birthday package isn’t there. Damn. Well, that sort of sucks. John kicks at the grass with his bare feet a bit, and decides to go for a walk down to Oak’s lab.

It’s refreshing scenery in a ‘nauseatingly quaint suburban town’ as Dave would put it, quiet and –sweet-smelling and full of all the sentimental images of John’s past. There’s that lake, with that private property fence around it which stops people swimming to Cinnabar.

There’s his house, and Karkat’s hive, the lab, the friendly fat guy in blue, fields, a wreath of forest, and a bunch of other generic stuff which makes up the rest of the town. There’s this old, homely vibe to Pallet town, sweet and familiar and nostalgic without being too wooly and overgrown. Or at least not as much as Jade’s island, John thinks. But that is why they call it the town of Pure White Beginning. They say Nic Cage-Ketchum himself lived in this very town, many years ago.

“WHY THE FUCK DID YOU EVEN BOTHER SHOWING UP!” a hoarse voice intrudes his mental tangent. “JEGUS EGBERT PROFESSOR OAK COULDN’T SHUT HIS DEMENSIA-ADDLED TRAP ABOUT BEING ON TIME AND GETTING A POKEMON EARLY AND YOU JUST WALTZ IN HERE AT EIGHT AM LIKE A FUCKING SLOWPOKE AT NAPTIME LOOKING ALL FRESHLY RESTED EXPECTING A POKEMON. I HAD TO LISTEN TO TWO HOURS OF THAT SHIT FOR NOTHING. FIRST CHOICE. NOBODY CAME. WHO WILL MY NORMAL FOX CUB STRIFE WITH NOW? THAT’S RIGHT, NO ONE. YOU UTTER PIECE OF SHIT.”

“Gee calm down, Karkat,” John says. “I’m excited too.”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO YOU FUCKING HAVE CAKE SMEARED ON YOUR GLASSES.”

“Oh, thanks,” says John, wiping his glasses on his pyjama shirt. “Haha I must look a bit funny, mustn’t I?”

“YOU’RE FUCKING TELLING ME,” says Karkat. “BUT ALL HUMANS LOOK THE SAME WEIRD-ASS PUTRID TO ME SO LIKE I GIVE A SHIT, I HAVE PIDGEY TO SLAM.”

“Okay, see you,” John says. Karkat walks out of his way to shove John over, and then saunter off into the grasses up above. His baby foxhound skips off John’s nose: d’awwww.

“Congratulations on your trainerdom!”

“DON’T TALK TO ME LIKE YOU’RE NOT AN EMBARRASSMENT.”

John picks himself off the ground and enters into the laboratory. There’s an assistant scurrying around, and professor Oak appears to be asleep by his poke-machine, all tuckered out. Poor old dude. John decides not to wake him. Natural light slams down from the greenhouse dome skylights built into the laboratory and catches in John’s eyes as he steps towards the pokeballs. Gah, his shortsightedness! Out of the sunlight steps a person.

“Is that any way to greet a friend on your birthday?” Rose asks, arms stretched wide, and present in hand. John laughs and pulls her into a spinning hug, knocking his head into one of the walls in the process.

Jade’s face comes into view a weighty blackness later.

“Jade?” John asks, attempting to sit up. “Where’s Rose?”

“She left with her new Pikachu already,” Jade tells him. “Oww, that concussion looks painful. Did you get my present?”

“What…?” John’s shaky vision swims into mild focus. Jade is talking to him on a camera on skype on the computer, where the top of his chat panel informs him g _ardenGnostic is now online. gardenGnostic is calling you. Videocall in session._ “How did Rose get my Skype password?”

“She said it was through using her feminine wiles, but probably not. Did she stop by your house to check your Pesterchum account details?”

“I don’t know…” John says, waiting for the blackness and the bad taste in his mouth to fade. “Am I braindamaged?”

“Rose said there was a lot of strange writing on the wall of your room. Also cake. Happy Birthday!”

“Thanks,” says John, grinning. “I need to change my Chumhandle. I’ve been getting way too many trolls anyway. This one Japanese girl, whenever I google translate her messages they all come out as weird exotic death threats!”

“Cool,” says Jade, and her smile has a lot of teeth. “But scary! Did you get my package yet?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. No, I didn’t. But I’ve been waiting! It might be at my house by now, how long was I out for?”

“I don’t know, Rose only pestered me about half an hour ago. It’s quarter to nine.”

“Wow, that’s a long time,” says John. “Oh! Did you get your Blue version of pocket sburb monsters yet? I was thinking of trading with you for Green.”

There is a short silence, and John looks up from where he’s holding his head to check the screen. Jade is out cold, just like the Professor. Oh well, Bec will probably remember to feed himself.

“GOOD MORNING YOUNG CHAP!” shouts the professor, starting alive. “HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF POKEMON!”

“Pokemon isn’t a world, it’s a species?” asks John confusedly.

“I’M BEING META! BUT NEVERTHELESS, WELCOME TO THE GREATER EXTENT OF THE KANTO REGION, THAT YOU WILL SURELY SEE IN FANTASTIC TIMES ON YOUR POKEMON JOURNEY!” Oak yells. “YOU WILL SEE AMAZING SIGHTS, AND MEET MAGICAL CREATURES!”

“Professor, I think you’ve been talking to Karkat a bit long? You’re yelling.”

“Oh, I am too!” says the professor, his voice returning to a normal level. “It is hard to compete with you noisy young grubs and ruffians! Especially when you’re deaf and everything sounds quieter too you! I remember my Professor, Professor Oak Senior was just the same! Back when I was a lowly assistant! He was a much better professor than I am, he never fell asleep at all! But that was when we were still being invaded, and you had to keep one watch eye open…!”

“I think you still do!” says John, rubbing the bruise where Karkat pushed him. “I wish the trolls could just find someplace else to live sometimes.”

“Chin up boy, or you’ll get culled for heresy!” says the professor brightly.

“Guess so,” says John, happily as well. It’s hard not to be happy around the professor, even being injured and late and embarrassed as is. Oak’s enthusiasm is pretty infectious. “I don’t know why Karkat waited until my birthday three years later to start his journey, though. It’s not like we have any standardisation procedures or anything that force him.”

“I don’t know boy, he seems pretty angry! Not as mean as some of the trolls I’ve met, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t want to go on a pokemon journey at all and was pressured into the shebang by the constraints of his warbound culture!”

“Wow, that certainly is contrived,” John says. “I think he was just lazy. Do you have any pokemon left?”

“I certainly do!” exclaims the professor, smacking the button on his fancy, glass dome pokeball display. “A Charmander, a Bulbasaur and a Squirtle! Which would you like!?”

“The Squirtle, thanks,” says John, mistakenly pointing to the wrong pokeball.

“A good thing too!” Oak says. “I have to transportify this Bulbasaur to another thirteen year old. She sure likes her rare, expensive and eclectic pokemon!”

“That sounds just like my friend Jade. She lives out in this tiny island in the Pacific hardly near Cinnabar or the Seafoam Islands and it’s practically a paradise for endangered species. She’s a really good person!”

“Smashing!” says Oak, placing the ball on a little transport disc and whisking it away.  
“Squirtle is a great choice!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” John says. “Mostly I just wanted to leave the Charmander because Dave has a weird pyromanic love for cool fire pokemon and Jade likes grass pokemon that can easily adapt to her island and her science experiments. Not that she experiments on pokemon of course, that would be the cruel.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time!” Oak says darkly. “And not the last either, with trolls running this entire damned show! You be a good lad and stay away from those Rockets, now, John!”

“Of course, professor,” John assures. “Thanks for the pokemon, by the way.”

“My pleasure! I love giving out rare pokemon and empty encyclopedias to lucky starter trainer visitors! It’s practically tradition! Take this, while you’re at it.”

John accepts the diary, tucking it in his pocket. The professor gives him a manly back clap.

John shakes his hand instead in return, and leaves with a brand spanking new Squirtle. He keeps it tucked in his pocket for most the trek home, and takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the heavy disappointment that is about to fall on him from his wise, mature father. Who knows what sort of dramatic stunt Dad will pull for this double leaving town-birthday occasion.

John knocks. No one answers. John jams the doorbell a few million times, and furrows his eyes at the doorhandle. There is a white slip tucked in the lock beneath it, which won’t pull.

John turns himself sideways to read the fine print.

_John,_  
 _I have been kidnapped by Rocket grunts. Everything is fine._  
 _If you’re reading this note it means you’re finally strong enough to kick down the front door. Please refer to the supplies bucket beneath the bathroom counter._  
 _I am so, so proud of you._

  
Rockets?

Fuck. Fuck shit no noooo.

John staggers away from the front door, dazedly climbing the junk pile to his upstairs room. He goes immediately for his serious business claw hammer. No Squirtles will be harmed in the making of this domestic scene. He can almost hear the Rockets, scheming and sparking and shorting fuses downstairs.

John smacks out his bedroom door, hammer thrust forward, to find nothing. His heart thrums tightly in its pocket, he checks each door with small steps to meet small, empty spaces.

His father’s study. That would be a good place to check, if Dad was involved with any of the occult business his hobbies suggested...

Nothing. It’s an empty BUSINESSMAN’S room. Totally unsuspicious documents everywhere. Half the stuff is just reconstituted from the Dadly Depot, for all things unholy. John feels absolutely shattered by this discovery. What reason could the grunts have to kidnap Dad if he was for all intents and purposes an ordinary businessman? Other than Team Rocket being evil. But they aren’t rich, they aren’t well connected or cutting-edge. Just an ordinary family.

John twists his hammer in his grip and exits the office, more confused than ever before. His dad always seemed like the conspiracy type, like he was preparing John for something like this. But if not this, then what? And why?

John softly treads downstairs, preparing to play a surprise prank on the intruders and blast his pranksters gambit sky high. He darts out from behind a particularly inconspicuous metal clown. Nothing. His pranksters gambit sinks as he essentially pranks himself. The whole bottom floor of the house is deserted. In the living room, the TV flicks itself on.

“In this past week sales of Betty Crooker products and cookery have skyrocketed... seen to be a massive win for the multiglobal franchise, which is using volunteer trainer soup kitchen programs and free samples to pitch to a growing market. Dietician associations remain concerned on the effect of sugar on grubs, raising comparison to Faygo usage, a drink still raising controversy amongst the human community...”

Ugh. Betty Crocker, his eternal nemesis. It would be a kismesistude if John didn’t want to lower himself to the level of holding respect for that monopolistic bitter bitch. Must be a slow news day. This is the worst birthday ever! His dad is gone, he missed out on meeting his best friend, and the Rockets are resurfacing beside the rise of Crocker...

Well, things will work out. And if they don’t, they will eventually. He’ll battle the gym leaders and become a strong trainer and go find his dad. John forces himself to take deep breaths.

He can probably get pokemon and travel supplies elsewhere, but what he needs right now are running shoes and a map. These old converse are way too tight to hike in, and starting to fall apart besides. A map he can probably find at Karkat’s, and if he pays the guy in blue who walks around everywhere he might be able to buy some running shoes? Hopefully.

New mission in mind, John gets dressed and bags some food and clothes, snagging the abandoned keys by the door at the front of the house. A light splatter on tile of blood builds to a trickle on the doormat and it makes John’s stomach flip and seize uncomfortably, to think about those Rockets hurting his dad, or his dad hurting the Rockets back.

Ahh! John smacks himself on the head, turning around and bounding back up the staircase. He almost forgot to talk to his friends and say goodbye. That would be a pretty rude thing, passing out in front of Rose and ditching his friends without any notice.

turntechGodhead is offline  
tentacleTherapist is online  
gardenGnostic is idle 

 

TT: Greetings, John. It has come to attention that today hallmarks the famed anniversary of your birth.  
GT: haha yeah, it’s definitely been weird. good though, because apparently today is the day pocket sburb monsters comes out!  
TT: Is that so? I don’t believe I ordered a copy, although I will admit a reluctant interest in the varied MMORPG’s you indulge in.  
GT: you should get yellow version! then we’d have the complete set. except that dave said he read in the torrent’s comment section it would be a special edition thing that wouldn’t come out until next year.  
GT: it sure sounds shady when i put it like that but im sure dave’s bro came by sburb naturally with the internet connections dave’s been telling me about. its too bad there weren’t enough beta cds to go in all our computers  
TT: You sure hold a great faith of regard towards the dynamics involved with illicit, anonymous, transactions. Should I be worried?  
TG: i dont think so i’m not really the sort rose!  
TT: Of course not.  
GT: yeah you know. that’s weird. anyway i’m utterly sorry i blanked on you the first time we met!  
GT: i wanted to talk and stuff, about how you were doing with Jaspers and what things you were knitting  
GT: and how you liked pallet town!  
TT: Jaspers and I are as thick as ever. That is to say, however thick the bond between girl and cat can be. Certainly, not as fortified as that of man and dog. My knitting is a wooly tangle joining a purple whole, which encompasses the elemental values of a happy surprise.  
TT: Pallet Town was pretty. Too little on the small side for my tastes. Very peaceful compared to around here north of Cerulean, even if I am fourty miles out from the nearest town. Cosy, I would say.  
GT: well it’s home to me. i feel as if you’ve gotten to know me a bit better!  
TT: And with that detrimental lead in, I feel as if I must ask, John; are you truly leaving? do you know the risk to your life and health at stake?  
GT: I’m not silly I’ve seen those man vs. wild. vs. troll videos. and those dramatic re enactments they have on the culling channel. like i know what grubsauce is, i’m not going to go running off into the blue without a pokemon or a phone.  
TT: You’ve got to be kidding me. Does your dad know about this?  
GT: he sort of got kidnapped?  
TT: Team Rocket, no doubt. Very well.  
GT: very well what? you’re scaring me rose!  
TT: Very well, you’re an idiot. You might not have taken the invasion war to heart but I certainly have. I’m not about to go and let my friend be lynched or left for dead without back up because he ran into a troll with ego problems and a machop. I’m coming with you.  
GT: what? you cannot be serious! its not even your birthday until December!  
TT: You don’t need a license to own a pokemon, John, even if it is traditional to inherit a starter on the eve of the coming-of-age. I suspected this might happen, so I bought Oak’s spare Pikachu in case.  
GT: no way! if you don’t have a licensed pokedex or a trainer ID they’ll think you’re a Rocket!  
TT: It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Besides, it gives me an excuse to delve into the fine arts of counterfeit.  
GT: but if you’re unregistered you don’t get insurance or free health care or badges ROSE don’t be dumb! i don’t need a babysitter i’m 13 now. besides haven’t you gone back to cerulean?  
TT: Guess again.  
GT: where are you?  
TT: Karkat’s. His mother grub is an overlarge crab with snapping pincirs. Karkat’s starter didn’t happen to be a Crabby, did it?  
GT: be right over.

John signs out of Pesterchum and adjusts his bag over his shoulder. This day is certainly falling off the handle, whatever grip on said handle it might have previously had. But it’ll be fun going on an adventure with Rose, if he can convince her it’s exciting like wizards and stuff. He hopes she doesn’t get in trouble. But then again, Rose is really smart, she could probably worm her way out of any trouble she got into. But John doesn’t want to be any burden on his friends and put them in danger! That wouldn’t be being a good friend.

Dave would know what to do, and John has the sudden urge to talk to him about it. But he just told Rose he’d meet her, so he better get going and not log back in.

John shuts the front gate behind him and fondly regards the suburban two-story he may be leaving behind forever. At least he remembered his wallet this time. He’s sure he wouldn’t forget anything of vital importance again.

Wait! He forgot dad’s PDA has a pesterchum client! John could probably use it to check his last logs or as a pokegear type deal. It would make conversing with Dave while he walked quite simple.

John scurries back into the house and dad’s office to check his backlog. Bleh. The interface is so bland! John locks the background to a hilarious penguin in pitiful attempts to bolster his flailing prankster’s gambit. Doesn’t seem to help much.

John locks the door behind him and double checks the look of his house from afar. He’s positive he forgot nothing this time. He would have to be a real idiot to fail to recall anything of proper significance after racking his brain once over already.

Shit! He forgot to check the mail for Jade’s parcel like he told her. Arrrrrrgh. John facepalms himself repeatedly as he doubles back to the mailbox, flipping the little red flag as he does. A package! It’s red though, not green, so maybe that means it’s for his dad. Haha, you snooze you lose dad, John’s going to read it anyway!

Unfortunately, the thing is ridiculously hard to open and requires teeth. Someone went overboard. Maybe the Dadly Depot has an AA group for Dads Who Go Overboard.

_John,_

(oooh it’s for him!)

_happy birthday. guess i had to pay you back for those wicked ass shades sometime._

_ i know youre going on a journey and gonna be a master and shit _

_i feel like it is my responsibility as your best bro to tell you_

_dont be an idiot_

_oxoxoxo_

_< <<333_

 

THE CON AIR BUNNY! John can hardly believe it. Nic Cage-Ketchum himself grasped the fraying fibres of this huggable plush. John may or may not tear up a little. Dave is so cool, John is so lucky to have him as a friend. Best birthday present _ever_. John is going to have to buy Dave something unbelievably awesome for his birthday next year. He’ll have to go on the PDA and thank him right away! And also call him out for being a meanie in his letter for some reason. If he can work up the heart.

Regardless of more forgotten priorities, John begins his walk towards Karkats’, bringing up pesterchum and generally not paying attention to where he’s walking.

GT: wow dave thanks so much! i’ll make sure to treasure it forever you can count on me. its almost too good to be true and i’d say i can’t accept this but i’d have to return mail it and i’m not sure if i can let it go.  
TG: damn straight you can’t  
TG: i paid like 40 bucks for that thing  
GT: dave you shouldn’t have! i mean you should have bought it for like 40 bucks it’s obviously worth more than that, but how am i ever meant to repay you?  
TG: just be your normal egberty self  
TG: goin around being all nerdy and reading my hells of awesome webcomic  
TG: also by not dying  
GT: don’t be stupid i’m not going to die on this pokemon journey. i am way too lucky a dude for that, i do have this awesome best friend named dave after all.  
TG: course you do  
GT: sometimes i don’t know how i ever got so lucky winding up with a best bro as cool as you  
GT: what did i ever do to deserve you? like you’re such an awesome person but you’re also a really good friend?  
TG: aww shucks  
GT: rose and jade too. anyway you don’t need to worry or throw me any warning comments while i’m out on my adventure, i’m sure everything’s going to go well anyway  
GT: because rose says she is coming along with me!  
TG: no shit  
TG: is she even registered  
GT: i’m not even registered technically but yeah that’s what i thought. she’s kind of pushing the boundaries of human safety a bit? right now she’s at my troll friends house  
GT: oh man I would not want to be that troll right now  
GT: no it’s okay Karkat isn’t there for it to be a big deal  
GT: and i think his crab lusus can take care of itself  
GT: but if they found out rose talks to trolls and doesn’t have a trainer license she could be culled for acting above her station!  
TG: yeah if humans could be rogues lalonde would be up there  
TG: like if she doesn’t get registered because she’s 12 and can’t and she has a pokemon that’s obviously been battling it looks pretty suss. if they thought she was a rocket that could be pretty bad  
GT: probably not as bad as actually being a rocket though  
GT: by the way i have to tell you  
GT: my dad  
GT: i got home from the lab today and he’d been kidnapped  
TG: oh shit. egbert im sorry man  
TG: that sucks serious ass  
TG: did you call the police  
GT: no i didnt think of that  
TG: see its statements like that make me wonder if youre actually fit to be a trainer  
GT: shut up if they used to let ten year olds be them i can too  
TG: sure sure  
GT: really though do you think i should let rose do this? i’m not sure if it’s that great an idea.  
TG: tbh  
TG: until you register pokecentre at viridian youre kind of in the same boat anyway  
TG: all of us could be culled for interacting with these trolls trolling us at any time which isnt even our fault  
TG: youre even more in danger because one of your rivals is a troll  
TG: trolls and pokemon are a pretty batshit mix  
TG: its a houndoor eat houndoor world out there and ive got my swords and jades got her guns but what about you and rose?  
TG: i dont want you to do this but if it means you become stronger and less naive as people and mercenaries  
TG: then i think you could use all the help you can get

John is that wrapped up in the conversation and doesn’t pay attention to where he’s walking so much he runs straight into the big guy in blue who is always around who John doesn’t know the name of.

“Oof!” says John. “Sorry.”

“That’s oak’s lab,” says the guy, pointing. “It’s the home of the pokemon professor.”

“Yeah, I know, I live here,” John replies.

“Oh, my bad. We get so many tourists around here wanting to visit the Ash Ketchum House I get confused as to when my job stops being my job.”

“That’s funny,” John says. “What’s your name, by the way? I’m John.”

The guy shrugs. “No offense, but we probably won’t see each other round much, since you’re obviously the age to be about going into the world. I don’t want to have to say any more painful goodbyes.”

“Wow. That was... blunt? You don’t happen to have a spare pair of running shoes that I could buy off you?”

“No, sorry.” He turns to leave.

“Wait! Do you know where I could get some? These shoes are way too small.”

“Nope.”

Blargh! That encounter was completely pointless. Luckily, all that time chatting with Dave John’s walked all the way to Karkat’s house. He can probably just say goodbye and log off.

annihilationAttendent began trolling ghostyTrickster.

Gahhh!

AA: 私はあなたの頭がロールオフするあなたが一生懸命ファックしたい.  
AA: あなたは、このような哀れな人間である  
AA: しかし、すべての人間は哀れなアール  
GT: i told you already I don’t speak Chinese!  
GT: i’m not you’re Chinese troll friend, i’m an English-speaking human.  
AA: あなたは日本語が話せない場合は、なぜあなたは、日本の関東地区に住んでいますか。コラッタ地球スカムをなめる行く。  
GT: i’m sorry I have things to do.  
GT: i can’t explain this to you all day everyday you know.  
AA: ジョン-ちゃんは、そのような挑発的な若い毛虫人間です  
AA: 燃やす!!!!  
GT: haha that one looks like a yak.  
GT: you’re not a very good troll if all you do is make me confused and make me laugh.  
AA: 私はナイーブな馬鹿の男の子の誕生日おめでとうを反対する。あなたは死ぬつもりだ.  
GT: okay i really have to go i’m blocking you again now sorry  
GT: i hope you find your friend!  
GT: by the way stop death threatening me  
AA: 私はあなたの血をこぼし、あなたの肝臓を食べるようになる。

ghostyTrickster has blocked annhilationAttendant

John signs out and pockets his phone, rapping thrice on Karkat’s front door.

“Hello?” He calls. “It’s John.”

No one answers. He goes ahead and lets himself in, figuring Karkat’s crabdad is too large and cumbersome to answer the door.

A yellow, spike-eared pokemon stands in front of him, red cheeks buzzing furiously.

“Calm down, Tzadiquel. It’s only John. John is my close associate. Say hello to my new Pikachu, John.”

John waves. Tzadiquel rasberries at him and scampers behind Roses’s knee. “You called him what?” John asks.

“Thor was a bit overdone, so I chose another Thursday god. It was either that or Zazzerpan.”

“Zazzerpan is a great name,” John attests. He follows Rose into the living room, where Crabdad is perched precariously on the couch, pincirs dug tiny holes all over the plush leather.

“I’m sorry about Karkat,” John says. The Crabdad makes a complicated clicking sound, snapping its claws, which John presumes to be acknowledgement. “Umm, you don’t happen to be handing out free maps?”

Crabdad jumps frenziedly and scuttles off the couch and over the coffee table, down the hallway and up the staircase. John realizes he probably could have got a map from the blue guy, who said he was a tour guide. Idiot self. 

Rose attempts to exchange glances with John, finds him facepalming, and raises an eyebrow instead. John shakes his head violently and follows Crabdad up the staircase. This is not the first impression he wants to be making on his to-go-everywhere training buddy.

Crabdab flies into a purlpe and green room decorated with assorted Troll romcom movie posters. Karkat’s, John’s guessing, by the upturned reapercoon and band-stickered husktop. There also seem to be abandoned strips of red felt left everywhere, presumably left over from his early grub years of decorating the suburban hive.

Just when John is about to ask, Crabdab bangs a massive claw against Karkat’s chest of drawers. The lusus then proceeds to throw himself at the window repeatedly, until he finally manages to break through the tile-pattern windows and into the fresh air, dropping down onto the grass below.

“My life is so weird,” John says.

Rose snags the spare maps from the chest of draws, stepping carefully around spilt reapercoon goo, while John wonders to himself why specifically the goo is yellow and lumpy. Like custard. Man, John hasn’t eaten since breakfast. He wonders if he could just... kneel down, and--

“What are you doing?” Rose demands.

“Nothing!” John shouts, sticking his finger behind his back innocently. “So, umm... how do you know Karkat?”

Rose shrugs, although her gaze is all piercing and attentive. “I spoke to him when I hacked your Pesterchum account, and he mentioned you were neighbors. ”

“Oh yeah! That was crazy of you, how did you manage that?”

“Oh you know, my massive technological intellect,” Rose says off-handly. John stares, waiting for expansion, and she smirks. “You left your account logged in when I went to your house, John. I visited you earlier, but you had already left for the lab, and so the house was empty. It was a simple matter of checking your profile details.”

“Wow, I really do need to make a new chumhandle now,” John says, whipping the PDA out of his pocket. Looks like Jade has been pestering him. “Does your mom know you’re leaving for a pokemon journey early?”

“Actually,” says Rose. “I didn’t see fit to mention this over the internet, but my mother disappeared this morning with no forewarning. I searched her usual jaunts, but no cigar. That’s why I thought I should come visit in person, instead of just ordering my Pikachu online.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” John says. “I hope the state of my house didn’t scare you. All the more incentive to get going, I guess.”

“You’re not... intimidated, by what is out there, considering the competition and the fact we’re all by ourselves?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure. But it’s not going to stop me doing what I want to, and you shouldn’t let it stop you, either. When do you want to head out?”

Rose shrugs. “Well, this lifetime, preferably. But you told Karkat you needed running shoes. Go on, then.”

“Go on, what?” Rose is nudging him towards Karkat’s closet. “Oh no. No way. I’m not stealing my neighbor’s spare shoes!”

“Why not, he’s not using them,” Rose reminds him. “And it looks like his crab lusus is gone for good.”

“Because! Karkat’s my rival. Rivals don’t lower themselves to pawing through the thrown bones of the other team.”

“He wasn’t acting very nice to you on Pesterchum,” Rose says. “Sounds like he deserves it. This might be your only chance for comfortable concealed footwear.”

“I don’t care what he might deserve, it’s just not right. They’re Karkat’s and I won’t take them from him.”

Rose lets out a resigned sigh and after a moment, follows John out of Karkat’s room and out the front of his hive. Tzadiquel scampers behind, loyal to the teeth for a brand new pokemon. Weird... Oh, a shock collar. Do they even work on Pikachu’s? Seems kind of excessive. Rose sure is funny.

“I know my mother only ever had our relationship out for passive-aggressive taunting, and I don’t miss her,” says Rose, as they walk along. “But I do wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye.”

“My dad, I guess I’m pretty worried about him? He’s never really taken well to the idea of me leaving home, even to go to the corner shop. I don’t know if he’s worried or bored or afraid and that really sucks! Not knowing. I want him to be doing well, and to get away soon. It won’t be easy. I don’t like the idea of him getting hurt, or having to hurt anyone. But I know he’s a strong person, especially when he feels like he’s got something to fight for, and he can take care of himself. I’m sure your mom is the same Rose, I’m sure she’s doing everything she can to see you again! So they’re going to be okay.”

“Mother has never been okay a day in her life,” Rose admits gloomily. John pats her on the shoulder and gives her a small smile, but she looks away. “Sometimes doing everything you can isn’t enough.”

John sighs, sticking his hands in his pockets, and levels Rose a country-trip long stare. “Rose. Don’t make me do something about this. Because I will. And it’ll be drastic.”

Rose plods along the overgrown road in a slump, determined not to look at him.

John resolves to abominably desperate measures. It’s probably about 97 abominable inches on the desperation tape measure. “Friend time!” he sings, and wraps his arms around Rose’s shoulders.

“Rose, you can’t be sad, feel the strength of my friendship! Look... it’s lifting you out of your sad spirits and into the air! You’re spinning Latin dancer fast with the force of all my companionship. The sun is shining and so are you. And it wouldn’t be possible for me to carry you so fondly, if you’d never been such a great friend to me!”

John lets Rose go for a moment to let her feet touch the road a moment. She pushes John off of her, slumping as she turned back away.

“Not right now,” she mutters, slumping into a hunchback’s droop. 

“Roossee, is someone concealing a smile?”

Rose shoots John an angry, hurt look over her shoulder. John frowns, wondering what’s come over her. Did he say something wrong? Maybe he shouldn’t have talked about his dad so much. Seeing as she doesn’t have one. Well, he shouldn’t press her anymore, if she has a problem she’ll come to John in her own time! Probably. Rose hasn’t actually ever done that, but umm. Uhh.

“Oh hi, funny-name Pikachu,” John says, seeing it hasn’t followed. “Do you want to get some training done? I think maybe that’s a better idea than going after Rose right now.”

It static zaps him for no reason, and scampers off into the north fields. “What?” John asks, feeling a bit confused, like someone’s yellow pit-bull has just decided to play electric hide and seek with him.

But as John finds out, chasing after its yellow form after shooting an anxious gaze Rose’s way (where’s she going? how does she not get lost out here?), the pikachu actually wants to play hide and seek with some baby pokemon birds instead. They collapse in the swishy grass in dead faint. Even the cute little babies, and the mothers screech and swoop, and fetus eggs crack open in sheets of lightning. At first John doesn’t get it, because it’s daytime, he thinks his bad eyes are just playing up. And then he sees Tzadiquel’s cheeks flare bright, and he realizes that Tzadiquel is just sitting there, making innocent tribal bird Pokemon fall from the sky without a beat of its tail.

“Maybe you should fight them fair, so you get strong,” John mumbles to the Pikachu. “And it’s not just... useless murder?” He’s not sure if the Pokemon doesn’t understand him or just doesn’t want to, jumping on its hind feet and craning its head over the grass when all the bird Pokemon are dead. It seems to find something good, because its ears perk sharp and it darts off into the high bushes as fast as invisible lightning.

“Oh,” says John, and finds himself trudging after it. Scuttles and scampers catch him still, as he turns about, unused to the lively environment. Or just generally anything that isn’t the shape of his safe, plastered bedroom. The day is getting warmer and brighter now, insinuating the heavy blast of sun to come by lunch, and the taller grass itches and prickles John’s wrists. 

John’s feet are hurting and he hasn’t walked a hundred meter yet, but there definitely are a lot more pokemon in this grassier low patch, cackling and squawking beyond his line of sight. They sound enraged. “Pikachu?” John calls worriedly. A flock of the strangely-marked pokemon birds sweep overhead. Fleeing. John makes his way to the shorter, higher, grass, looking for a place he can see. This is definitely out of town, and out of the safe Viridian route now.

New birds caw and screech angrily, swooping and smacking at one another, their sharp talons extended dangerously. Together with overgrown rats, scuttling and darting as he turns on the spot, and long teeth sink into John’s leg.

“Shit!” John cries, trying to shake the rat beast off him. It won’t dislodge though, and god he hopes he got that tetanus shot, and it’s painful, why won’t it let it him go, and there are more coming. The birds have flown away; something irony, and dreadful assaults his nose. John suddenly gets it. The birds have been preying on these rat beasts competitively all morning, like usual. Tzadiquel has come in and killed half the mutant birds, spilt fresh blood, and the rats have gone wild at the scent of scorching feathers and gut splatter. Scared half the birds off. And it’s a feeding frenzy, and he’s got teeth in his shin, and the sewer rats must be running out of fresh bodies... shit, this fucker hurts, he can’t /think/.

“Gaaaahhh!”

Suddenly, they’re on him, pouncing and scratching and ripping in a blur of dirty grey. and white. Boy, he can think now. John kicks and swats and his eyes sting and he has grass up his nose. He trips and falls back, squishes a few. More come. The smell is like nothing before. He swats fruitlessly, feeling their angry whiskers prick his skin.

John knows what he should do, the pokeball at his belt, but with fucking rat beats in his fucking face and lunging at him midair it’s seems ridiculous to be able to manage the grip and just end this ratting around. He knows it wouldn’t be fair to bring an untrained pokemon into this ferocious mess no matter how good a choice and John’s heart lurches terribly as he reaches into his strife specibus for his hammer.

Three go down. He bashes another in the stomach, but the last one catches his fingers in his teeth, and he drops the hammer vacant in surprise. It falls somewhere amongst the bushery, and the blighters fly at his newly exposed wound, like ugly, fat vampires hungry for Egbert blood.

Desperately, John cast into his inventory. The stink bombs... He ejects a packet of paperclips, an unframed print canvas, toadstools, none of which stop the rats clawing him down, teeth glued to his trainers, weighing him down to his misery. He has only one card left, which he reaches for with a faltering hand.

LIFO whips out his birthday cake, which plunges theatrically into the air in a swirl of icing, splattering over thin, scratchy blades of brown and green.

John stares blankly, as his aggressed limbs are vacated, and the rats pounce on the sugar confectionary. Leaving him to probably get out of here as soon as he can again.

John turns, muttering, “so weird,” to himself, and stops short at the even stupider sight in front of him.

Tzadiquel has brought him a pile of dead birds. Their glassy eyes look at the image behind him in glazed, panicked bemusement. “P-pika,” The Pokémon’s feet rub together nervously, and John laughs, shaking his head and covering his eyes, and bending down to appraise the peace offering.

“So, all this time you were only trying to impress me, huh?” John asks, and doesn’t need to know if Tzadiquel knows English to know he’s right. “We’ll I’ll be, I am impressed. Very ratical of you. Rats, why didn’t I think of that. Rat damn.”

Luckily, John’s prankster’s gambit isn’t ALL used up, and he isn’t one to look a gift bird in the beak. He swipes the open backpack off his shoulder, and flings it down on the head of the unsuspecting Pikachu. John zips up the bag tightly, pressing all the seam lines to keep him down. There. Try escaping to imminent crisis now, Pokemon.

“I really think we should be friends, Tzad,” says John, giving the Bagged Pikachu a big hug. “What’s this? Pikachu... You’re growing wings! You’ve lifted your spirits so high... you could just... just....” John pulls one arm back, grinning into the expanse of hot blue sky. “Fly!”

And with that, John launches the backpack as far over his head as he is able, watching amusedly as it soars through the open air and drops in a tall patch of grass.

This feels like a perfect time to route through his scattered backpack objects. Oh, and Jade was pestering him, before, and he should really get back to the conversation where he just ditched Dave. But he’s feeling sort of hungry in a ravenous sort of way.

John doesn’t find any food, but he does find the mysterious purple parcel that Rose handed to him this morning. Her present! He almost forgot he hadn’t opened it in all the hullaballoo.

John hesitates on the ribbon, unsure if whether to wait to open it when Rose gets back (what is the social etiquette for pissing off a really close friend?) or not. But his damned curiosity is too strong, and it’s not like there’s anything else at hand more pressing, and he splits the ribbon and watched the present tumble to the ground.

 

Dear John,  
Although I have only known you only the sum of a few years, you have meant more to me than those years compiled themselves. Today is a day we honour the friendship that has blossomed between us, and you face the hardships of preteenhood, with all the cultural rite and passage these days entail. However, I know you will face these hardships with a smile, moreso compelled by the reminder of happy times in birthdays past, infused with effusive ardour for adventure and setback alike.  
(I hope you can take this sock as a mere token of my appreciation. May its fibers ever fly you in the right direction.)  
Happy Birthday, and I wish you best of luck.  
Love from,  
Rose.

 

A sock? John giggles to himself, imagining himself as Dobby, and Rose as the imperious Lucius Malfoy.

Oh! It’s not a normal sock at all, it’s a wind sock. John pulls it over his head, hearing the tail whip up behind him. It’s quite warm and snug, actually. He thinks he’ll keep it on.

Tzad rolls down the hill in the bag and stops with a funk next to John. John’s PDA blips irritably again and he starts.

gardengnostic began pestering ghostyTrickster

GG: sorry i fell asleep!  
GG: how is your first trainer day going mister egbert?  
GT: that’s alright i kind of figured you would at the most inopportune moment  
GT: it’s been a pretty weird day  
GT: I just got attacked by a plague of rat pokemon  
GT: hitting them with the hammer was kind of fun  
GT: i was a bit too freaked to notice though  
GT: they were so squeaky!  
GG: ooh sounds like squiddles! I love squiddles I wonder when the next season comes out!  
GG: january 2014 yay :DD  
GG: that’s too bad john! i’m surprised i thought the pokemon were weak around your area  
GT: well i think they were  
GT: erm are  
GT: but there were so many on me it became pretty hazardous  
GT: i think some of the strong, rare pokemon occasionally come down from the mountains?  
GT: like Mt. Silver and stuff where Nic Cage-Ketchum trained! i wonder if he still trains there now. imagine if i became really strong and i got to meet him there.  
GG: that would be pretty cool!  
GG: sometimes your obsession with that guy worries me john!! :(  
GG: you should fan over Ash Ketchum, it’s a lot safer.  
TG: i know.  
GT: trolls rule us, i should. but ash ketchum is just not nic cage!  
GG: but the horns  
GT: horns are ugly  
GT: the only animals that have horns are goats and rhinos  
GT: and they’re both horrible  
GG: reindeer have horns and they’re super cute!  
GT: reindeer have buckteeth.  
GT: or maybe that’s just bambi.  
GT: anyway that’s the only good thing about what trolls look like, the fact that they have fangs  
GG: i keep telling you you don’t need to be so insecure about the teeth john!  
GG: i know for a fact that’s dave’s bro has an insane fetish for buck teeth  
GT: you don’t even notice them unless you’re looking for them  
GT: thanks but i don’t believe you  
GG: you should! like those pokemon you were fighting today  
GG: Rattatas right  
GG: they have massive teeth  
GG: did you realize?  
GG: people always underestimate how strong Rattata’s teeth are because they don’t often use them. so they think Rattata are weak  
GG: but in some pokedexes it’s been reported they can bite through concrete!  
GT: wow i am so glad to have an overbite now! Not  
GT: sorry jade  
GT: even if i had Rattata teeth  
GT: which I don’t  
GT: they’re still not nearly as strong or sharp as troll fangs  
GT: the only thing my teeth are good for  
GT: is probably biting into concrete so they snap off and stop existing  
GG: :/  
GG: John I have buckteeth too, remember.  
GT: yeah but they look pretty on you.  
GG: thanks!  
GG: John then but dont you think if they can look nice on me they can look nice on you???  
GT: it’s different  
GT: you’re a girl  
GG: wow sexist! D:  
GT: oh no sorry i have to go  
GT: rose is back and she looks mad.  
GG: WHAT! you’re with rose?????  
GG: why is she angry?  
GG: did you get my present yet????

 

ghostyTrickster ceased pestering GardenGnostic

Rose stands tall, fierce and sombre, the pupils of her uncanny violet eyes needles in the light. “I have a plan to find our parents.”

 

Your name is Dave Strider and crows pecking on your window at the turn of dawn are not a thing that usually happens.

“Sup crow,” you say, nudging off the sheets and slinking over to inspect. “What are you doing, man? Chill.”

The crow is not a chill cookie. He keeps pecking away, like Lewis Carroll just told him the answer to some epic riddle and pecking is the only way he knows how to express morse code.

You focus on the beats, wondering then for a crazy moment if he is trying to tell you something. Nahh.

You crash back to your desk, waiting for the wild noise to quit. So you can go back to sleep or something normal.

Nope. Wow, that bird has stamina. How’s it flapping its wings so long so fast and not having a mental breakdown?

You’re not getting back to sleep, so you sample that business up, overlaying a sweet snyth lead in a two bar loop. In goes some bass, then you decide hey, I feel like something more impossible ridiculous. So you press basic quavers in Analogon echo. Haha, awesssome. The song’s building, still and demanding all your wicked know-how master drops, but not grounded enough with all its stacatto tappery. You toss between whole note bars and an actual melody, then meet in the middle with the bridge. Then you pile on all the warm enclosing layers of awesome you can. Smackdown time, one wild run of harmonizing brings you to its chorus. Your solo hand goes hard on the sliders maxing out the peck smack, and in your foggy haze of sleep you can’t resist whipping out a wicked record and scratching that shit right up.

It wakes you, and you cut hard and clean. A breakdown unfurls around you, refrains and counter blows, stretching out to vastest limit before you snap a verse and fade out. Nice transition.

Best way to start your morning. You lean back in your seat and listen to the playback in. Yeah. Kickin replay value. You smile and shoot the crow an imaginary hi five.

Shit, it’s 5am. You planned to be up like a whole hour ago ironically, but not actually because fuck that. You sarcastically planned that shit, but irony is a cruel mistress.

Hell like Bro won’t be up. Maybe John’s on.

TG: yo egberk  
TG: you there  
TG: cmon berty beetle its only 6am

He’ll log in like in an hour. Don’t want to come on too strong.

You dress, check your negatives and shuffle out the front for what you actually woke up for. Your package isn’t in, though. Fuck that’s shocking, you always see mailmen up at 4am like troopers fedexing in guerilla warfare. It’s a cold day in hell. You swear the express girl has said her vows to forward delivery. That express girl is awesome.

Your phone pings. Holy shit John, thou hast underestimated greatly. Thou is grovelling thy forgiveness.

It’s not John.

Yeah, the fuck?

cronusGalvinated began pestering turntechGodhead

CG: T9 6egin, I w9uld like t9 pay respects t9 the elders 69th past and present 9f the c9l9nial lands. 6y which I insist y9u cease s9iling the imp9rtant legacy 8f their 9nline interacti9n c9ntinuing t9 c9nverse in a manner self-gratifying and self-c6ngratualiting in 9f y6ur ‘g6d’ pr9n9uncement. N9t t9 start 9n the religi9us deleteri9usness 9f such pr9pulati9n. It is in 6latant disregard f9r their sacrifice in pi9neering f9r the survival 9f the tr9ll species 9y inflating 9neself 6ey9nd reas9n s9. Do cease.  
TG: whoa someones snappy for 5am  
TG: ps learn to type  
TG: like seriously whats with the 69s what are you some sexual predator  
CG: Cy6er-aggressi9n is a very pr9minent pr9blem 6ut it is 96vi9us from y9ur insinuati9n y9u have little awareness of the nature 9f a6usive interaction. Were I t9 delve int9 the deeper ramificati9ns 9f this ign9rance, y9u w9uld s99n be mindful 9f y0ur 9wn bellic9se behavi0ur, which, ir0nically presents m9re 9f an assailant than that 9f victimizati9n.  
TG: tldr  
TG: give me back my font colour  
CG: As I’m sure y9u aren’t aware, tr9ll 6l99d c9l9ur and the ensuing link 6etween hem9status and externalizati9n is a massive issue in tr9ll s9ciety. 6y implying my a6ility t9 freely switch c9l9urs, y9u are making am9k 9f the seri9us nature 9f my struggle with mutant caste, as well as my 6ravery in c9nfr9nting such an issue head-9n. It is a delinquency t9 inc9rrectly c9nstrue my 6l99d c9l9ur, t9 presume that a tr9ll w9uld thr9w away a hue s9 em6edded in their pers9nal identity and c9mmunal self w9rth f9r such trivial purp9ses. Laughing at the very 6l99dw9rk-f9undati9ns that supp9rt the tr9ll system 6y casually reshaping an image at whim is a n9ti9n s9 disruptive t9 pers9nal ch9ice; ta699, 6ut m9re9ver harmful in an interpers9nal way.  
TG: yeah big whoop  
TG: like i was supposed to know youre a troll anyway  
CG: Regardless, 9ne sh9uld take pr9per precauti9ns when speaking with a stranger 9f unkn9wn descent 9r 6ackgr9und: namely, speaking with neutral; pr9n9uns, 6l99d affiliati9ns, ageisms, including neither a c9ll9quialisati9n 9f language 9r 9verse f9rmalizati9n, species/race epitaphs, dem9graphic p9siti9n 9n hierarchical slave trade, the la69ur market, 9ff-w9rld c9l9nisati9nal pr9-alien manifest9, c9l9nist slurs 9r suchwise an 9ffense.  
CG: This is extremely relevant t9 9ur circumstance, as 6eing a tr9ll situated 9n a new place in Earthen peerage, I am su6ject t9 harsh scrutiny s9 t9 6efit my place 9n the new land, and in my representati9n 9f tr9lls in general. This is a very sensitive t9pic, s9 try t9 f9ll9w with me.  
CG: Tr9lls, speaking 69th as a f9reign and indigen9us species, are perceived as 9f an extremely vi9lent, crass and saccharine in disp9siti9n. Different w9rld-raisings in different micr9 and macr9 envir9nments have led tr9lls t9 6ec9me instilled with different interpers9nal values; 9f gallantry, pride, meaning that discriminati9n, 6ey9nd petty and r9manticist, has 6ec9me idealized. 6ecause 9f this unnessesary and mistaken h9stility, tr9lls themselves have faced a great deal 9f discriminati9n fr9m 9ther creatures. Perhaps m9re than any 9ther species kn9wn t9day, having left us pr9ne and unf9rtunately 9pen t9 the a6use and manipulati9n 9f f9reign species. This can 6e seen in larger p9litical sways 6ut als9 the smaller m9ments 9f daily interspecies reacti9n with regard t9 tr9ll pers9nality.  
TG: you want to talk to me about troll privilege  
TG: okay lets do this  
TG: not like your species has been murdering left and right according to your fucked up non-secular judicial system  
TG: not like the enclaved housing assignment is fucked and there’s nothing but human=mutant shaming  
TG: not like ive seen drive bys on old peoples homes  
TG: not like my bro can’t even hold down a job because of you trolls and has to work himself stiff for money  
TG: not like we wouldn’t be enslaved or dead by you if not for the fact that our pokemon would pwn you thrice over  
TG: not like you fucking invaded my planet and my city hornbitch  
TG: you have the nerve to call out on being loathed?  
TG: my bros bro is dead because of your stupid interplanetary settlement  
TG: because he was the only one with the guts to stand up to the thresecutioners and say this system is fucked up  
TG: look at how culturally sensitive i am being!! what a good troll i am for catering to the rights of a pitiful human! haha how funny they are with their seclusion and discooperation why dont we all just get along!  
TG: let me tell you this straight man you can’t even begin to apologise for what you’ve done  
TG: so many people have died because of your race  
TG: whatever other social problems you might say we have and want me to sign your stupid little petition for  
TG: they are nothing compared to that  
TG: nothing.  
CG: I think y9u’re 9verreacting, here. Multiculturalism is surely a lesser issue in 9ur c9m6ined s9ciety than s9me9ne experiencing the sledgehammer 9f misunderstanding 6r9ught 9n 6y great s9cial change w9uld ultimately realize. This anti-pr9gressive mindset is safely descri6ed as “inertia,” a psych9l9gical resistance t9 change which exaggerates and exacer6ates any perceived s9cial disc9rdance needlessly. Defensiveness is a natural state 9f mind when 9ne feels their culture is 6eing imp9sed 9n, 9r 6eing assimilated unt9. While that certainly might 6e a p9ssi6ility fr9m a human in the p9siti9n we are speaking 9f, the fact is that despite inherent cultural rites and pr9cedure which lend a surface appearance 9therwise, tr9lls as an educated species are aware 9f the ide9l9gical variances which inhi6it alien lifef9rms fr9m understanding l9cal cust9m.  
CG: Due t9 this understanding, they in many cases d9 n9t attempt t9 mix with neigh69urs 9f different 6ackgr9unds, as fr9m this they 6elieve their individual differences can n9t 6e rec9nciled. As y9u have suggested, this av9idance can lead t9 great interpers9nal c9nflict as hate-speech and hyper69le fr9m 69th parties invite c9ntempt. Nevertheless. Educati9n and rec9nciliati9n can easily remedy false assumpti9ns made 6y 69th parties. Here, I will take the time t9 remind y9u that many tr9lls were als9 killed in the feud that sparked 6attle 6etween 9ur respective species. I am n9t disregarding 9f past grievances and l9sses, merely the extent 9f underprivilegeness which 9ccurs t9day. Let me refer t9 secti9n A, uppend 12 in the Trunesc9 Agreement maintaining human c9-c9mpliance and civil rights...  
TG: no stop  
TG: thats bullshit  
TG: quoting that treaty like we actually had a choice in it your fucking death race was going to kill all of us if we didnt back off  
TG: how fucking dare you  
TG: you invade us and then complain about dying in the process  
TG: what did you think was going to happen we were just going to lay down and accept our hellish fate  
TG: wise move einstein why dont you invent the wheel in your adventures next  
TG: no this is just really really sad  
TG: not just for the people who died  
TG: or the people still suffering  
TG: but for you you just dont get it  
TG: youre probably a nice guy  
TG: no scratch that you’re obviously a self-righteous douche  
TG: but its not like youve been brainwashed this shit is right there the bloody laundry is right beneath your nose  
TG: its not some big secret that trolls are murderous and evil  
TG: but you just dont want to admit it  
TG: that there could be something beyond you going on  
TG: beyond facts or argument  
TG: beyond retaliation  
TG: being helpless  
TG: its not a good feeling is it  
CG: If we c9uld keep this argument-- excuse me, tr9llery, at a strictly the9retical and 96jective level. Despite preachings, n9 evidence has 6een c9llected that human-discriminati9n is m9re 9f a severe issue than say, gru6 culling, 9r, hem9caste 6ias. There are many underpriveleged m9ther gru6s facing the slaughter69x p9st-rearing, and similarly if y9u were t9 put y9urself in their place, the matter 9f light discriminati9n w9uld fall 6ack c9mpared t9 that 9f an imminent demise.  
TG: what part of this is a big deal arent you getting  
TG: its all the same fucking issue  
TG: that trolls are bastards and its stupid and they wont admit it  
TG: out of some misplaced sense of alien pride  
TG: let me tell you  
TG: if i were a troll  
TG: i would be absolutely disgusted at the things my people are doing  
TG: even if i were a white monster who couldn’t talk i would think that  
TG: look at you youre the most civil political troll of the lot but you still wont admit that human mistreatment is an issue  
TG: because it isnt one to you because were not as good as trolls in your eyes  
TG: were just weird mutant alien animals who are fun to stab around sometimes  
TG: even your non-sentient pet parents are ranked higher on the sympathy scale then us  
TG: you know what  
TG: youre worse than one of my bros puppets  
TG: at least they are hollow and rebellious in a seemingly true way  
TG: here you are spouting all this selfless open-minded bullshit  
TG: but if push came to shove youd be in with the other conforming dickheads  
TG: dont pretend otherwise

( _cronusGalvinated _ _is now an idle troll)_

You take a deep breath and pocket your phone. CronusGalvinated, whoever he is, has to be the biggest dipshit in the history of dipshittery. So basically, your regular troll. Fucking hell, he’s probably just some wriggler in his lusus’ basement who FLARPs all day and ices social justice blogs. What type of asshole hacks their way onto a protected pesterclient just to bark? A preteen, that’s who. He’s probably like six. Probably couldn’t think up a single good death threat if you held him by his bulge over a volcano and asked him if he was feeling a bit nippy.

Your good mood is utterly trashed and you’re standing still on the street with your phone out like an idiot.

You wander inside. Shock upon shock, Bro’s up and at em. He ironically asks you how you slept, poking at the bruises beneath your eyes, and inquires what the hell you were standing outside for.

You talk of your massive owning of a prejudice troll noob, and your new vidya gamu, which Bro responds most favorably to.

“Humanity, represent.” You and bro fistbump a bit.

Talking to that guy took like twenty minutes. You chew some Chinese which isn’t crawling with ants for breakfast, lament your cholestoral levels, and practice with your sword in your room for awhile. Unfortunately, the sword’s a piece of crap and it breaks on you, and when you go downstairs for a new one Bro’s got his smuppets out. Blurgh.

Well, doesn’t this sound like an ultra epic fucking morning for an innocent walk along the road. Or not so innocent actually, since you live on fucking main street’s ugly step-sister, and the thing is crawling with bums and smashed glass and broken pails and shit. You half expect a cherub to jump from the alley and shank you, but that’s why Bro keeps you on edge, you guess. No one’s up at this godforsaken hour anyway, not even the trolls who party all day human backwards. Shit’s weird. John says his troll-friend never sleeps, and you kind of hate him for it, because curfew’s enforced like religion here. Just another way the trolls can make sure you’re laying at their mercies.

Newspaper stand’s open-though-not-meant-to-be, and the block headline’s all about how low levels of crime are because of culling procedures. Which is true, if you take ‘crime’ in the ‘alternian crime,’ context, ie. no one killing highbloods or going shitmaggots on the culling drones. In human crime standards, your city’s pretty much gone to shit. The gang rules everything. Your fucking newspaper stand guy gropes your back pockets in guise of a friendly customer-salesman bum-pats or something. Fuck, lifestyle thieves are weird.

Is he coming onto you? You eye him suspiciously, and he reaches over to swipe your shades. No fucking way, newspaper stand dude. You abscond like The Condescension is after you.

Shit, can’t a guy just read a page in his seedy-ass home city? Fucking Saffron, man.

“Scram!” A Rocket guard gives you the finger as you walk the long way back around the centre block. You don’t meet his eyes. Your shades itch. He’s a loser for saying scram to you anyway, that’s so 70’s it’s not even vintage. You’re on a different road but I’m a nineties bitch.

You throw another look back at his 24-hour ass, stood stiff and uniformed in front of Saffron’s main department store. A strong, red ‘R’ is emblazoned on his T shirt, and he’s nudging his friend, pointing at you.

Something thick twists in your gut. It’s bad enough having to get out at 6 to stretch your legs, but you don’t want to have to think about meaning to be holed up in your house arrest all day like a normal citizen-who-isn’t-a-Rocket.

Shit, that red text guy before. Red’s their colour. You cast back your mind. Did he seem the sort? You can’t remember. Weird opener, maybe he found your lettering on a pledge site and thought you were a follower. Maybe that’s why he got offended about the colour shtick. Fuck maybe they’re onto you, and he’s their scout.

No, that’s fucking stupid. You might live on Rocket turf, but everyone knows they disbanded three years ago because of Ketchum. They know how fucking dangerous humans with pokemon are, they’re not gonna 1984 the general public without a major fucking announcement heist first. You might think up a new worst-case scenario every morning or three, but you know your image checks out. You’re an upstanding fucking human citizen, you don’t cause any fights, you don’t breed any gyarados in your backyard, and every person you know talks shit about the system under the guise of pure anonymity. If your situation has upped your not-taking-shit levels, so be it. It’s no big deal, you have the best poker face ever.

“Sup lil man, took your sweet time.”

“What can I say, time and I have a smooth ticking relationship,” you reply. “She’s as sweet as corn syrup, all freshly oiled, like fucking harmony in motion. Mesmerising. Like staring into the open sun. Fuck, that timeface, it’s just so blinding. Pure rays of warmth and sunshine coiling around my hands man, butterflies skipping over unicorns in fields of bursting, blooming, daisies.”

“Find any trouble?”

“Nahh,” you lie.

Bro nods. “Sweet. Bring your sword next time, don’t want to get fucking shanked.”

You bite down on the argument that asks considerately to surface. You can’t bring your sword, it’s asking for trouble, and Bro knows it, and you know it, and he knows you know he knows you know it. It’s cool, though.

You pester John some more, but it’s a no show, and you’re left to confiding in the one only other hellish person who is insane enough to be up at this wretched, sobbing hour of morning.

Harley.

GG: hey dave!! Hows my favourite coolkid hanging  
TG: oh you know the usual way  
TG: upside down on a branch in the jungle safari  
TG: on a tiny island without a runway smack bam in the middle of the pacific ocean  
TG: so like a normal person  
GG: haha I know youre poking fun at me but im glad you didn’t turn that into a double entendre  
GG: you’ve done worse with less im afraid!!  
TG: what do you mean worse with less  
TG: im shocked  
TG: i thought we had something pure  
TG: are you tellin me ive been pseudo flirting this whole time  
GG: hehehe I think you know the answer to that dave! Mr ladies man you  
GG: though it is funny you should talk about the past when  
TG: did you realize you just killed that sentence and never ended it  
TG: halted dramatically and unreasonably  
TG: like what the hell you just stopped talking for no reason that hobo sentence is lying in the gutter waiting for its redemption  
TG: a redemption that will never come  
TG: lets take a moment of silence for that sentence  
GG: haha jeeze I had to go pee! Sorreee if that was inconvenient timing  
GG: but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do  
TG: christ on a coconut  
TG: can you not keep on this trail of conversation and go back to what you were saying before  
GG: haha I was thinking  
GG: what was I thinking? Damn, I can’t remember!  
TG: yeah right  
TG: quit being such a tease and spill  
GG: im not being a tease not the way you think im being a tease! :PP  
GG: the thought I had wasn’t about romance  
TG: what about our past could not remind you of romance  
TG: was I not good in bed or something  
TG: did I not treat you like a lady  
GG: oh my god dave shut up with your insecurity! And you wonder why I dumped you  
GG: oh yeah the past that’s right  
TG: what the fuck Jade  
GG: what??  
TG: what you just said  
GG: what did I just say  
TG: you know  
GG: no I don’t! It doesn’t look like I said anything that isn’t rightly said to me  
TG: are you fucking kidding me  
GG: no, why? Did I say something wrong?  
TG: no  
TG: its nothing  
TG: tell me your story  
GG: I cant now because you’ve brought me off track and made me forget again  
GG: thanks a lot!!  
TG: is it that hard to scroll up the conversation and look at what reminded you last time  
GG: you know what  
GG: its not important

(GardenGnostic ceased pestering TurntechGodhead)

TG: forget i asked then

turntechGodhead began pestering TentacleTherapist)

_ [TentacleTherapist is in offline mode, and your messages may not appear at log in]_  
TG: i dont understand  
TG: why she does this to me  
TG: she keeps bringing it up again  
TG: fucking airing our dirty laundry as if she hasn’t dried it out till its fucking stiff and brittle  
TG: why is she so nice to me if shes just going to treat me like im the bitch  
TG: we used to be so tight  
TG: like not even in a dating way just in a friends way  
TG: i told her i didn’t want to go out with her if it meant risking our friendship  
TG: but no  
TG: and here we are  
TG: its ruining my life  
TT: As much as I love being used as your private livejournal, it is 6am.  
TG: oh and youre so asleep  
TG: appearing offline too are you all this tasteless passive aggressive bullshit  
TT: How could you wield such horrid calumny back to my proselytization? Surely you don’t take one’s trespass as another’s invasion?  
TG: slow down Shakespeare  
TG: im having a crisis  
TG: use small words  
TT: I’m not against you, Dave. I want to help. The best way for me to do that is for you not to think like I’m plotting against you.  
TG: but you are  
TT: And I’d hate to label a pot as a black kettle, seeing as the kettle is a lot larger than the pot, in this instance.  
TG: what so youre calling me a hypocrite  
TG: you think im plotting against you too  
TG: are you serious  
TT: No! Well, of course I am serious, but you’re only a hypocrite in the fact that you’re complaining about Jade’s prejudgement of you, and here you are presuming my own malicious character.  
TG: okay fair enough  
TG: but gee way to kick a dog when he’s down  
TG: im so down ive reached an anti gravitational pull and started going up again  
TG: but only in the way that im still going down except down is just upwards from a different point of view  
TG: like how every way is north at the centre of Antarctica  
TG: and you just stuck a foot in my directionless rib  
TT: Could you repeat the conversation to me, or at least the part where Miss Harley found fault?  
TG: Miss Harley  
TG: what are you her teacher  
TG: really going for mediation intimidation here aren’t you  
TT: I’ll press again. What was your fight about?  
TG: she thought i was still flirting with her or something  
TG: which i wasn’t  
TG: like come on she brought that whole line of conversation up  
TG: and then she called me a man whore  
TG: and then she told me to shut up after she baited me about our relationship and basically insulted me for being unsure about it  
TT: Did she actually use the phrase ‘man whore’?  
TG: she called me a ladies man  
TG: like that’s any difference  
TT: Two very different things, within the context of our discussion. She feels you’re not available—that you’re preoccupied with other females. Not as freely presented as a man whore, as such.  
TG: so im not easy  
TG: well thats just fabulous  
TT: Think about it. She thinks you’re busy with other women. You don’t talk to her anymore for fear of provocation. She talks to you first, but she puts you down as she does. She’s jealous.  
TG: idk from two words seems like kind of a stretch lalonde  
TG: ever think she might just be vindictive  
TG: maybe i need a restraining order  
TG: look why would she be jealous when she was the one who dumped me  
TT: Seller’s remorse, perhaps?  
TG: you have got to be shitting me  
TT: Look at it from her perspective. You’re in a long-distance relationship with a boy you’ve never met, and in the meanwhile, you’re alone on an island with only your unique dog pokemon for company. You’ve literally never talked to another human being in your life. You actually shoot any living creature you find.  
TT: And your boyfriend is in a tight situation in the middle of a city crowded full of people. Dangerous, enticing people, that you have no idea if you compare to. An alien world full of trolls, and gangs, and pokemon. You constantly need his attention. But he can’t pander to you forever, he has to go on a journey.  
TT: In your dreams, you see what will be. And you see something you can’t tell anyone about, because of quote unquote ‘time shenanigans’.  
TG: back up  
TG: she never told me about any weird dreams  
TT: That’s because you always forget dreams by the time you need to remember them.  
TG: then how do you know  
TT: I don’t know how I know. It’s scaring me.  
TG: shit  
TG: we’re all going nuts or being possessed by an Alakazam or some shit  
TG: what the hell are we going to tell john  
TT: Perhaps it is better off he remains ignorant on this front.  
TG: you say these things and its because you say these things that i dont trust you  
TT: John is our leader. He doesn’t need distraction right now.  
TG: what what is he leading us to  
TG: con air the extended edition  
TT: War, Dave.  
TG: oh no  
TG: let me gather up my rioting spears  
TG: one sec gottta tune into am for the prime minister’s announcement  
TT: For someone who mixes metaphors with such multiplicity, you’re not too hot at understanding them.  
TG: fuck symbolism symbols can represent anything and you know it  
TG: and metaphors are just linguistic symbols  
TG: and youre using the symbol for deep shit youre using the shit symbol but its not in front of a toilet  
TG: so forgive me for being somewhat skeptical  
TT: Be skeptical, then.  
TG: wait so how does this even remotely relate to Harley being jealous  
TT: She’s seen the future, a future which is very plausibly grim, considering our current setup circumstances. And there’s something in that dark future she can’t tell me about. Or you. And it’s made her angry, and it’s spurned her greatly.  
TT: The event has, possibly, though not with any degree of accurate confirmation, influenced her perception of how the present needs to unfold so to affect the future. Possibly, although she didn’t want to break up with you, she was forced to do so by events outside her control, to protect you. However, she was unable to offer you any rational reason, so she lied. She constantly feels guilty for doing so, leading her to honesty-propelled near explanations, circumvented by the fact she can’t give any reason other than she knows it to be true from the prophecies of her sleep.  
TG: fuck remind me never to get on your bad side  
TT: Would you like me to give you a thorough byplay on how I assume the conversation went down?  
TT: I’m supposing you called her on avoiding the topic, and she snapped. You then said something exceedingly inappropriate stemming from your deep rooted sexual repression.  
TG: no stop  
TG: some other time okay  
TT: What, don’t like it when the tentacles are in the other brain lobe?  
TG: no and that’s disgusting  
TG: i hate to admit it  
TG: i mean wow lalonde you sure know how to think up the most outlandish things ever  
TG: but it sounds more like the jade i know than this  
TT: It’ll be okay, Dave. From what I have gleaned through our own conversations, there is a future for us to ascend to.  
TT: And though I hate to get your hopes up and possibly mislead you like this, perhaps a future for the both of you.  
TG: im taking it into account  
TG: so you think something bads about to go down huh  
TT: Worse than romantic calamity, at any rate.  
TG: ill kick the future threats pasty asses  
TT: Naturally.  
TT: It’ll be a like a party. I’ll bring sburb pocket monsters.  
TG: snacks are on me  
TG: props for helping me out, lalonde. sorry for being a super smooth shitsharpener about it  
TT: You’re welcome. You take care, Dave.  
TG: caretaker is straight up my job description lalonde

TentacleTherapist ceased pestering TurntechGodhead.

 

Haha, burn. Obviously you’re not actually a caretaker, but you feel a bit like Bro’s sometimes.

You pester John a bit more, TG: cmon berty beetle its only 6am tossing up whether to let him in on the Jade know how, then bail. He is your best bro, but there’s only so much emotional shtick you can take on a lame-ass morning without hulking out. Not to mention your problems on him on his birthday is kind of a dick move. Later maybe.

Finally John logs on to chat, you brush your teeth and proceed to have the rest of the conversation with him, which is cut short by bro literally sticking a sword against your throat and asking where lil Cal is. (Also the mail lady, goddamnit, why does she have to do this right now.)

TG: i don’t know where your dumb puppet pokemon is  
TG: go screw a banette plush and leave me alone  
TT: you think you can get away with releasing a sexc mr mime assistant behind my back chump  
TT: ill never let you walk away  
TG: seriously because that would be pretty useful  
TG: so I can spit out this toothpaste  
TG: in the sink  
TT: your elecution is beautiful today  
TG: damn  
TG: would you like some speech therapy with that thick Texan drawl  
TT: cut the crap and give me the smuppet  
TT: you don’t want your face rearranged to look like a muppet  
TT: if fucks were bucks id be bill gates  
TT: because Im off the charts and this opportunity rates  
TT: off the record off the rails it’s a prime ass morning  
TT: birds chirping sunshine derping as you heed me this warning  
TT: dave  
TT: if you don’t get your ass to that roof in 5 minutes  
TT: im tellin everybody you straighten your armpit hair  
TG: oh my god are you for real that was one time

  
One time too many, according to Bro’s quick vacancy. You dodge Lil Cal with much disgust, consider his ironic appeal as the batshit father figure as of _the animes_ , and flashstep up your stairwell like a pro.

The second you’re orientated he’s in your face like a fucking ninjutsu antiques roadshow. His feet fly but his sword _soars_ and you’ve got some steel piece of shit you nabbed from the fridge flying free. But you have a plan today, and you know it. Bro strikes especially close to your throat and you smirk. You see him blink.

You pull the string to the attic trapdoor you carved out last night and all the weapons from the upstairs come flying off the stairladder and into his face. You savour the surprise and alarm on his face as bro tumbles back beneath a monumental pile of steel.

“Payback for the smuppets,” you say, sipping a wayward apple juice casually.

But you only succeed a moment before in a torrent of acrobatics he’s kicking all the shitty weapons in the air. You have time to think _holy fucking shit_ before they’re being launched at your face and you have to dodge in the unhappiest circus act clown pie deal ever. What looks like Sting slices your shirt and a rusty scimitar gives you an impromptu haircut. Oh shit no.

The weapons are still coming. But so’s Bro. Bro’s _hurtling towards you_ and you’re still tap dancing around machetes like an idiot, backed up against the sheer edge of the roof.

Fuck this.

You stop dancing so long as to suck a breath and think. You have to time this exactly right but there’s no time just casually performing a maneuver that could decapitate or amputate you— but there’s no time-- no, you’re Dave Strider, and you’ve never had bad timing in your life— blades block your eyes—

You swerve, crouch and reach up straight ahead of you, plucking the flying sword from the air by its handle and spinning it around. Flying weapons clatter to your feet as you duck and parry knives and shortswords, and then instantly bro’s back in front of you, and you’re fighting to make his quick blows.

He leads you along the roof ledge to the corner as you mirror his footwork, striking for his shades. It only seems to be succeeding in pissing him off, so you go for the groin instead, which is always fucking exposed because Bro’s too full of himself to fence sideways in proper formation.

Bro snorts, pats you on the head with the flat of his sword, and in a shock move tips his hat and flicks it your face, shoving you blind to the ground. You can feel your head fallen back over thin air over the edge, and quickly struggle to right yourself back onto even ground.

Bro has flashstepped himself a goddamn cigarette, and puffs into the breeze as you glare. He doesn’t even smoke the real deal, just does it for goddamned effect. Douche.

“Poor show, old chap,” he says, startling an almost-laugh from you. You quelch it and raise an eyebrow. “Planned attacks are lame.”

“Still worked,” you point out.

“Lil Cal,” Bro demands, looking ready to go again. “That was part of the agreement.”

“Oh fuck you,” you swear under your breath, and he smirks. You hope that godawful pokemon is gone for good. “I put him on the GTS in my box.”

“Well, the fuck are you still here for?” Bro says.

Lousy Bro, making you do all the work. You laugh to yourself and drop down the trapdoor. Idiot, you can’t believe he actually didn’t realize. Seriously though, you wish that thing would just fucking disappear already. Uncanny as shit. Hopefully someone’s traded it for a Charizard by now. Or a magikarp. But knowing Bro, Lil Cal’ll be back beneath his pillow by tomorrow. You swear he like shits with that thing.

So many depths of suck hell to waste your morning going after that pokemon, in the heat which is slamming down on you in lieu of Lil Wayne and the eyes which clench to you thinking damn, that guy is a legend, give me a piece of that. You’re one hell of a public spectacle, sweating and sighing as you drag your way to the pokemon centre. They should pay you for this shit.

A rocket waits by the pokemon centre, and you coolly walk around him without looking his way.

He grabs you by the shirt. “Beat it, kid.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” you monotone with a conspiritational wink. Wow, not cool, Dave.

“Fucking teenagers. Just get lost!”

“Public building, isn’t it?” you ask, though you know better than to start trouble with a rocket. They can’t be _seriously_ warding off the pokemon centre. You’d kind of like the low down on that.

“Look, kid,” he says, trying to pull you close. You flashstep out of his grip and glare at him. “Look, this is just the way it is. Not my call alright, Giovanni’s setting up shop. Get the fuck used to it.”

“Giovanni? Bullshit.”

“Maybe so. But it still won’t stop me from kicking you and your normal type ass half way to seven hells and back. What are you, twelve? Gonna sic your Rattata on me?”

You scoff and slink back into the shadows, deciding to leave the brute to his benediction. As a matter of fact, you don’t have a pokemon with you. But what you do have is some left over aj, extreme parkour skills, and experience breaking into high windows. You linger on the frame above, checking out the deal.

So there’s a bunch of Rockets collected around the main wing, hissing and whispering amongst themselves. One or two are boarding up the windows, and nervously eyeing the staff Blissey, which everyone knows are a tank of a pokemon and a bitch to defeat. The joys could probably cop some stored pokemon and bring down hell on the Rocket’s collective asses, but they’re just sitting there passively not doing a damn thing. If the Rockets are boarding up with only a couple that probably means they’re not trying to overtake the centre, just keeping it secure while an executive visits or something.

You download Lil Cal and grab a few pokeballs from the upstairs when a rocket turns his back, figuring to return them to their trainers and probably make their whole night.

It’s nice to be out with the sun on your back, even if you’re really pushing curfew now. The Rockets don’t care, but if a culling drone was out, you’d be as dead as grubsauce. Fuck Egbert and Jade and everyone else who doesn’t live in the city.

The pokeballs didn’t have ID on them, and when you get back home Bro says they were probably pokemon trainers had released being checked for diseases. Which is pretty awkward, so you just shove them in your top drawer.

Rose pesters you.

TT: Currently embarking on pokemon journey, sleep deprived. Thought I might send my regards for that happenstance.  
TG: youre welcome  
TG: yeah i hear eyebags are a great look this season  
TT: Shut up.  
TG: bitch say what  
TT: Bro still making you watch Queer Eye for The Straight Guy?  
TG: you promised never to talk about that  
TT: To John, maybe. Ahh, but for the fates that befall one when one is immersed neck deep in puppet posterior.  
TG: not even  
TG: today has been rump-free youll be glad to hear  
TT: How tragic to learn your Gluteus Maximus has abandoned you so. TG: no  
TG: my butt’s still here  
TG: why do you even know the scientific name for butt  
TT: I was just reading a dictionary and oh, there it was beside a picture of you.  
TG: like hell  
TG: more like some pervy word nerd observed the holy miracle of my choice ass  
TG: by happy accident  
TG: all yeah get me some of that in png format  
TG: then thought “damn, i need to hide this underaged stalking pronz somewhere no sane person will ever look”  
TG: “in this book of words everyone already knows will do”  
TT: Dictionaries aren’t redundant, or at least, your search history would suggest otherwise.  
TG: like shit it would  
TG: some people actually don’t set dictionary.com as their homepage  
TT: Yes, some people’s tastes are more _urban._  
TG: oh hell no  
TG: my slang is the freshest teat laid down in this meat market  
TT: One day I will catch you out. And when that day comes, it shan’t be a second too soon.  
TG: yeah it’s gonna be decades too late because itll never happen  
TT: Do you argue with every person you know?  
TG: it’s a point of character  
TG: but i dont argue with Mr. Apple Juice  
TT: You are Mister Apple Juice, and I think you just contradicted yourself. That qualifies as arguing as I’m certain you realize.  
TG: pshh weak  
TT: Not as weak as your vision.  
TG: not as weak as your fake prophet vision.  
TT: Not as _week_ as my prophet vision, you mean.  
TG: christ

turntechGodhead ceased pestering TentacleTherapist

Puns are so uncool they may as well be black coffee distilled with a gallon of boiling fruit juice. Actually, that sounds pretty cool. Puns are still lame, though.

You race to great the mail chick, who’s still waiting at the lift with parcel nobly, but is shooting frenzied glances at Bro’s mlp wall clock. You consider taking the parcel from her a slow as possibly just to piss her off, but relent for the good of the nation. “Godspeed,” you tell her with dire intent, wiping hot fluid from the corner of your eye.

Oh wait, it’s just your eyes bleeding from staring at that Pinkie Pie clock.

You consider the two copies of games from the package, write _Dave_ and _Bro_ pointedly on one and the other, and consider booting it up to enjoy the rest of the weekend you can’t actually go outside to enjoy.

Nahh. Not like there’s any rush to play. It’s pokemon time.

 

 

Your name is Jade Harley and you’ve been putting this off for _years_.

Mainly because it wasn’t a big deal and you never really noticed, but over that time, the thing has grown bigger and bigger so suddenly it’s a job that’s going to take all day to do, if you’re lucky.

Jungle weeds. The problem with living on a tropical island by yourself keeping a greenhouse, and having such fertile soil, is that there’s no one to hire to do your weeding for you when you’re only a tiny 13 year old girl.

The weeds have grown all up the side of the greenhouse like a very ugly prickly curtain, and nestled themselves in all the tight cracks between the pavements. When your Grandpa was alive, he would’ve done this. But it’s been forever since he’s been around, so he hasn’t, and you’ve never attacked them before.

But they’ve certainly attacked you.

WHAM! A tree branch whips from the ado to slam you. You jump as you see it approach, and just manage out of its line of fire.

It settles back into its scheming stillness.

You would just leave it, because you don’t care what your house looks like since there’s no one but you to see it, except they’re shadowing the greenhouse and smothering all your mint and coriander.

Not to mention, they bite.

You approach cautiously, bolt clippers out, with your Zangoose, Bec, near on whistle. Up close, you can see the plant writhing and twisting, churning, hisses slicing the air. It looks like you on a bad hair day. Or maybe noodle soup that got mixed up with electric wire.

It’s strange because when you listen close, you can almost hear _voices_ in the noise.

HSSISSSHH! A tentacle whips you across the face. You flinch at the root stem, trying to ply your clippers into the thrush. The snakes remind you of obscure alien anatomy, or Rose’s anthromorphic obscurities, and you just can’t muster up the gumption to snip.

The vine decides for you. It rips the bolt clippers from your grasp and prunes itself to dreadful nakedness. You watch in horrified fascination as it disowns flower and fruit.  
  
Then it’s coming at you with the clippers held wide, and Bec is growling in your ear and you’re raising your hands peacefully.

“Hey there, Mr Vine, I think it would be great if we could calm down and just be friends—“

Bec throws himself at the vine, which arches on its feet and lets out a mighty roar.

“Curses,” you swear, and about face like the wind and run like you’re chasing it. Gulleys and foothills pass beneath your feet as you tear away from your house and towards the thick of the forest, gravel stones biting into your bare skin. A great vine lashes beside you and sends you flying off your feat, and you somehow manage to catch yourself on landing – and twist your ankle, _oww_ – and keep on running.

Bec dashes ahead of you, inhuman as ever, and you’re yelling “wait up!” at him, as he refuses to hang back for whatever reason. If he’s rebelling because you never fed him breakfast you’re going to kill him.

WHAM! Debree flies over your head. Air pumps from your lungs like a heartbeat.

Your gasps are cut short as you reach the forest edge, and trees slow your dash considerably. Think, Harley! Gotta get away from the house, and the forest. Not left, you’ll get stuck at the fence gate. Right’s the hill, you’ll get bogged beneath it. Forward’s nowhere… the ocean! You can outswim it.

You slap yourself for not thinking of that earlier, and vault a branch onto a tree. You hear as much as see the vine weed crash through. Your lip stings as your teeth dig into it. You’re going to have trouble jumping from the tree tops, unlike Dave, and you _can’t_ go back down, because the foliage is too thick to run through. Shit shit shit.

There’s no time to lose, so you make like Tarzan, grab a weed monster vine and Spiderman swing as hard as you can. The vine wrangles and screams in rage below. You lose grip on it, and it sends you flying through the trees, crashing through the branches, tumbling towards the ground—

Yess! You fistpump and cheer to yourself, this one is utterly in the bag. Once the vine comes for you…

Once the vine comes for you? Large and noisy as it is, it seems to have suddenly disappeared in the forest. You feel a chill run through you, disturbed to have lost something so dangerous. It could come back any time. Your cuts ooze and sting in the water, and you let out a shaky sigh. That was close.

You paddle back to shore, whistle for Bec, and frown when he doesn’t come running. Maybe one of your friends can help you with this.

turntechGodhead is online.

Dave. You want to talk to him, you always do, and just having an excuse now is making your heart pound more furiously.

GG: hey dave!! Hows my favourite coolkid hanging

Your ease of conversation progressively descends from there. You’re left over feeling confused, frustrated and more hopeless than you were to start off with.

The forest whips, but there is no wind. The weed vine’s taken over the entire forest. You’re furious. It’s rushing toward you. You unclip your rifle from your belt.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

 

Her name is Rose Lalonde and her friend John is afraid of her.

She walks with steady purpose, one foot following the next, and Tzad fries the fields butter-pan yellow. She’s not necessarily confirmed of the responsibility of her own plan, but ever since she allocated the Grimoire tome to her strife specibus, trivialities like that have become less and less of a priority.

“Here’s the plan,” she says. “They only let commanding officers, trolls, into the police records at the station. So once we get to Viridian city, we wait for nightfall. Trolls and police officers are hard to overpower for clothing, we can’t exactly knock them out. Instead, we go to the West rocks, lather ourselves with grey clay mud, and I crochet our police officer outfits. My mother has a friend called Calliope in the area, we can break into her house and steal her cosplay horns. Then we storm the station, take the rocket records, and break into location to find our parents.”

Rose watches as John absorbs that plan. He chews his lip nervously, fiddles with his shirt collar a bit, transparent as glass.  “If you have any reservations, do tell,” says Rose.

“It’s just,” John splutters. “The police?”

Rose leans in, grins and whispers in his ear, “man up, John.”

He eeps, flushes pink and covers his cheeks with his fingers. Rose smirks and spins on her heel, whistling for her Pikachu. Rose hears John swallow, and his teeth click as he joins and rejoins them.

“Rose!” John squeaks pleadingly. “Come on. Breaking the law is huge.”

She says nothing, fishing a sandwich from her bag. “Rooosee!” John whines.

“Really, you’re quite the coward. I take it all back.”

John is struck speechless. Silence falls between them as Rose walks and walks, and John straggles and stumbles. He’s too short and cute for his own good.

Grass crunches beneath their feet, Rose’s smirk fades. She left him out here by himself, and when she got back he was covered in tooth marks and scratches. It’s sort of exasperating he can’t look after himself around _level four pidgey_ , but it is partially her own fault for leaving him to them. Her heart gave a small tug when she returned and found him snuggling in her freshly knitted wind sock.

Her mother… there’s just something _off_ about this whole situation. Today, of all days. The day she’d been planning to run away from home. John’s birthday. Needles.

She’d run, away from John, afraid that his attestations of _friendship_ and _courage_ and _Latin Dancers_ were going to make her do something she’d regret. She ran through the grass, through the fields, to the hill forest edge, until the height comforted her enough to remind her of home. And the feeling of being alone.

The wind swept her fringe into her eyes, and when she could see again, there was a man standing in front of her. But describing him as a man wasn’t quite apt. Where his head should have been, a bulbous white sphere protruded. When he spoke, hisses seared the air, curling into the shell of the ear.

_Bewarned._

“To fear without due is to speak without sound,” Rose said, and the voiceless, spoken man tilted his head – _sphere_ – in acknowledgement.

_Regardless of whether you heed my advice, which I believe you shall not, I am bound by moral obligation to extend this warning towards you._

“A moral man doesn’t corner a young girl alone by the woods.”

_And as such I will not entirely educate you of said fearmongerings. The warning is a mere formality. I wished to speak with you._

Now wasn’t exactly the time for a social visit. But she’s impressed by this stranger, whoever he was. “So speak, then.”

_With you, I said. I refuse to speak alone. Lend me your words._

“You’re very arrogant,” Rose said, smiling against her will. “What makes you think you’ve earned my attentions? I’m not seeing your ego’s strength of build.”

_When one knows everything, it is possible to be vain and depreciating at once. That’s called good satire, my girl._

“What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”

_You would not understand the answer._

“What’s the use of my knowing you know everything, if everything isn’t something you wish to disclose? Hypothetically.”

_I am not someone you wish to mock._

Rose shifted, uncomfortable. “I’ll mock who I please.” Her smile faded, thinking of John. “And as I care to.”

_I could change that._

“So cryptic. Oh, do wow me. Regail me with your fond adventures of bear-wrestling. Dazzle me with your binge drinking skills. Abash me with your selfless tidings of flower-shop roses and corner-store chocolates.” She felt lightheaded. Her fingers twitched with the urge to draw her grimoire, the shadows crept around her eyes and lingered long on the breeze.

_I can silence you with stone, or deafen you with wind, or blind you with bonfire. I move mountains._

Rose was already shaking her head. “Gormless.”

_I’ll show you. Pay attention._

“No. Only if you repay me,” said Rose, but the sphere-headed man was busy. He gestured to the ground, and the shadows thickened, curling around his palms, catching between his veins. They seemed irrevocable, indestructible, tightening around his arms, pulling close enough to brand. For a moment, Rose believed him gone, lost to darkness and corrupted irreversibly. The man dipped his head towards the shaodows, and whispered.

The shadows shattered, disintegrated around his arms, and she felt it in the earth, the momentary realignment.

_Unstoppable power. Immovable opposition._

“Hallucinating,” Rose murmured.

_Choice._

She wasn’t listening. Rose fell to her knees, reaching to where the shadows should be, pouring over their remains. She felt gutted. The shadows were gone, missing from where they ought to never have been. Her shadow lay still, but her needles were swirling.

He’s gone.

Rose kicks herself from the memory, focusing on that singular particular. Gone. As good as ghostlike, like he’d never been.

And maybe he hadn’t. Perhaps she’d been laying on the dark forces too strong. Perhaps assigning the grimoire to her strife specibus in such quick succession to her mother’s disappearance had been a bad idea.

John stumbles up to her. “Rose, my feet hurt.”

“I’m sure that was always going to be an eventuality, seeing as you refused Karkat’s own comfortable, unworn sneakers.”

“Yeah, but they really hurt. Can we stop and take a break from walking for a bit?”

“No. We don’t have any camping gear, so we’ve got to keep going. We have to make it to Viridian by nightfall.”

“Aww.” John kicks at a stray rock. It bounces off a boulder and knocks him right back in the head. _Two hit combo_! resounds from his prankster’s gambit. Rose can practically hear his echeladder sink in on itself.

They walk in silence. Then; “Rose, my blisters have started bleeding. I don’t think I’ll be able to go on.”

“Fortunately, what you think doesn’t dictate the laws of reality.”

“Yeah, because then Dave would have to call the cool police because he thought ghostbusters was awesome. And the cool police wouldn’t know what to do either, because they would be so into slimes and things. There’d be no cool people left.”

“That’s a paradox. You esteem ghost movies, so ghost movies would be in, except Dave wouldn’t be into them because of the status quo. But Dave would have to be into them, because you think everyone should like ghostbusters. His cool would be flopping around his apartment like a dead fish.”

John giggles. “I don’t think he’d like to hear you say that. He might have a coronary.”

“He might have a coronary anyway, knowing I left you to the metaphorical wolves.”

“Hey!” John interrupts brightly. “You know that’s not your fault, right? You can’t help what you get upset about.”

 _Get upset about._ Rose’s eye twitches.

“Indeed I can’t, if that was a thing that were true in probably an alternate reality akin to the one we have been dreaming of. By the way, you haven’t been having any strange dreams, have you?”

“Uhh, no? No stranger than the usual which is pretty strange, ha, I guess, but they’re just like falling and eating cake turkey and stuff.”

“Good,” Rose mutters darkly, twirling the needles in her palms that she forgot to put away.

“Why do you ask exactly?”

“No reason.” _Jade's dreams_. John shoots her a demanding look. “There was some strange writing in your room.”

“Oh yeah! Jade told me you said that. Do you think some trolls broke in and trashed the place?”

“I don’t think it was that, no. The texta was dry, and old. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the first I’ve heard of anything like that.”

Rose’s heart drops in her chest. “It was your handwriting.”

“Weird!” says John, laughing nervously.

“If you ever feel anything uncomfortable, like a vision, that you’re not sure about… and it makes you feel bad about yourself, you know you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course I know I can always talk to you, what do you take me for? You’re my friend, and you seem to be poking into my brain half the time when I don’t ask you to anyway.” John pokes Rose in the stomach demonstratively, closing the subject. A full scale poke war ensues, and Rose almost pokes John on the nose and John keeps poking the tip of Rose’s ear.

“I give,” says Rose, laughing good naturedly as she backs off. “Poking is too debase for my womanly abjection.”

“Oooh no, do you give up?” John asks, jumping and poking. “Not the great Rose Lalonde?”

“A tactical retreat,” Rose defends. “You may win the battle, but I will win the war.”

“War?” John scoffs. “Who are we fighting with?”

“The great nation of Facebook Pokes,” says Rose grimly, and John waits on, rapt. “I don’t know John, it’s a metaphor.”

John laughs. “I’m glad we’re not at war. Then it’d be even harder to find a good pair of shoes.”

“Feet still smarting?” Rose asks with a smirk.

“They’re not that bad,” says John, blushing. Rose has a feeling he’s downplaying something, or rather…

“Ahh, it’s pure hedonism, stretching our legs! On such a _fine_ summer’s day, too. Why don’t we go a little faster?” Rose suggests.

John’s expression is that of a wounded shark. “No, no, that’s fine,” he mumbles. “I can manage that! Hahaha.”

They reach a vast summit of small ledges, which Rose and Tzad gradually race up. John falls to the ground in defeat a step from the top.

“Alright?” Rose asks smugly. “Not feeling any foot pain, by any chance? Because if you were, that would be such a shame, seeing as you left a snug, cool, pair of sneakers right at Karkat’s. It would truly be so unfortunate.”

“No, just fell, I can do it,” John mutters, attempting to raise his foot. He crumples back on the ground a second later. “Ohhh myyy godddd I can’t do it. It’s like the plague has assaulted my feet, how do people even walk places. I am gone. Go on without me.”

“Not going to go barefoot?” Rose asks, leaning over his sprawled form.

“Not over the rocks and through the brambles I’m not.”

“But John, that poison ivy looks so enticing…”

“GUHHH!” says John, bonking his head into the dirt. “No. Way.”

Rose waits and watches tapping her foot until his expression turns truly destitute. He takes a deep breath out, as if resigned to soldiering on through the misery. Rose takes the sneakers out of her bag.

“Stole them from Karkat’s room,” she admits begrudgingly. “Couldn’t stand the thought of me suffering through your complaining not with them.”

“Holy shit!” John yells, and he wraps his arms around Rose in a sudden glomp. “Rose you’re the best friend ever thank you thank you THANK YOU I’ll never call you fat again wow I don’t believe it by the way have I ever mentioned how much I love you because I love you a lot and the shoes look really comfortable thanks ohh myyyy godd.”

“Okay, enough,” Rose laughs, but finds herself unable to pry from his vicelike grip.

“Rooosee I love youuuu,” he warbles, and plants a fond kiss on her hairline. Rose will never admit the deep crimson she turns.

“It serves you right, for being so headstrong,” she accuses, folding her arms with a huff. “I am counting the seconds until you ask me why I didn’t let on sooner.”

“Why didn’t you let on sooner?” John asks on cue, and they Rose snorts and John can’t stop smiling.

They hit the farms on the edge of Viridian at dusk, and a brownblood waits on his front porch with a rifle. Rose returns Tzad to his ball, and clouds loom overhead the next day as they break west for the clay gulleys.


End file.
